The health IT market is going to provide great opportunities for government programs and the health IT industry over the next several years. The government health IT market needs products and services, IT/Security/Privacy professionals, subject matter experts, business process management consultants, and trainers to assist with the complexity of e-government services. Plus expertise in interoperability, data exchange, research, and management consulting will all be needed.
The “NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center” (NITAAC) deals with two Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts called GWACs to help NIH buy IT faster. NIH labs and offices come to NITAAC when they need standard or customized IT products, services, and solutions. On the other end, NITAAC has pre-screened highly qualified companies that have already been verified for integrity and expertise.
Products and services can include computers, servers, IT-related products for the lab or office, routine or customized software, plus customized health IT solutions for laboratories and extramural programs.
The NITAAC program presently offers two GWACs that includes “CIO-SP2i” to be used for IT services/solutions requiring customized programming or applications such as data capture research analytics, cloud computing, or IT consulting. The other GWAC is ECS III is to be used for products/services such as hardware, software and peripherals or warranty services.
Using GWACs benefits NIH since the products are priced lower than in the open market and services are at competitive pre-competed prices and can be negotiated lower, awardees can be selected based on their best value criteria, customized terms and conditions relevant to the task or delivery order can be easily added, and no special “Delegation of Procurement Authority” is needed from NITAAC to use GWACs or online systems.
Also expected in early 2012 is the CIO-SP3 Small business award. The CIO-SP3, is a ten year multiple award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quality contracts with a $20 million ceiling that can be used by a federal agency to satisfy IT requirements that focus on small businesses.
The CIO-SP3 features ten tasks areas including IT services for biomedical research, health sciences, and healthcare, support for CIO, imaging outsourcing, IT operations and maintenance, integration services, critical infrastructure protection and information assurance, digital government, enterprise management systems, and software development.
NITAAC is planning ahead to find cloud-based solutions even though right now some of the agencies are struggling with an appropriate cloud strategy. Right now, NITAAC has information on their contract holders that have expertise and experience with cloud computing and therefore these contractors are in now in position to help agencies find cloud solutions and develop cloud strategies.
For more information on health IT services and products within NIH go to http://nitaac.nih.gov or email Mary Armstead, Program Director at ma19d@nih.gov.
